Classy Classes
Part III
July 25th, 2011
Previously, on Dark Designs: A mild-mannered game designer was using his weekly article to slowly but surely build a new Races with Class class, stopping along the way to reveal all the tips and tricks of his trade. An impatient public cried for a quick conclusion, as two articles passed by without a single class feature being written.
All that changes, today.
For those of you who don’t remember, here’s the class as it stands, more or less:
At first level, it looks like we have three different class features: chain armor, hellspawn, and influence chains. Chain armor is first, so let’s start there. It’s probably going to look a lot like the ability the kytons have, though, if it’s going on a player character, it’ll need a little cleaning up. Let’s see the original:
Chain Armor (Ex): The chains that adorn a kyton grant it a +4 armor bonus, but are not treated as armor for the purpose of arcane spell failure, armor check penalties, maximum Dexterity, weight, or proficiency.
This is relatively straightforward, and is certainly good enough for your average monster. For a PC, though, I’d like to see a little extra iron-clad boiler-plate set in place to ensure that there’s no confusion about what the armor can and can’t do. This may mean taking a few liberties. Here’s my version:
Wrapped in Chains (Ex): Kytons are always draped in heavy layers of chains that are inseparable from their bodies. These chains grant a +4 armor bonus to AC, have no maximum Dexterity bonus, no armor check penalties, no arcane spell failure, and do not count towards the kyton’s carrying capacity. The kyton is considered proficient with its own chains. Because the chains cannot be removed, the kyton is incapable of wearing armor other than its own chains.
The chains can also be used as a weapon. They deal 2d4 points of damage on a successful hit, have 10 feet of reach, and are treated as one-handed weapons that can be used in conjunction with feats like weapon finesse. The kyton is always proficient with its own chains, and is always considered armed.
The kyton’s chains can be enchanted as normal for weapons and armor. These enchantments are tracked separately, so if a kyton chooses to add a +1 enhancement bonus to his attack and damage rolls, this will not increase his AC.
Okay, so, it’s not that similar. The biggest difference is probably the addition of the ability to use the chains as a weapon. If you look, this is basically included in the kyton stats, we just neglected to make a class feature for it in the table (slipped my mind). I would add it as a separate feature, but we know we want it on the first level, which already looks pretty full on the table, and it sort of fits in here. Since we’ve added so much, and are changing a couple of other things, why not change the name, as well? Now we’ll call it “wrapped in chains.”
The next most obvious change is the fact that I spelled out specifically that the chains can’t be worn in conjunction with other armors. I know that technically speaking, the fact that it’s an armor bonus means that if a kyton decided to run around in full plate it would already be clear that he couldn’t get both bonuses. Still, when it comes to players and what stacks, I try to err on the side of caution. Besides, setting things up this way keeps players from grabbing full-plate, which, considering their hefty natural armor bonus, I consider to be a good thing. It’s true that this does cut into some of the player’s options in using the class, but, you know, when you decided to play a guy who’s constantly wrapped in chains, you kind of had to assume you’d have difficulty squeezing into full plate.
After that, I added information about enchanting those weapon and armor chains, because that’s the sort of thing that a player character is going to want to know about. The rules for that basically boil down to “the same as everyone else,” but, again, it never hurts to be specific with these sorts of things.
Next up is the hellspawn class feature. If you’ll recall, this class feature was made specifically to combine a number of different types and subtypes that a kyton inherits. As such, we’ll be writing it from scratch. I’ve done a few of these in the past, so I’m just going to grab one of those and play “fill in the blank.”
Hellspawn: Natives of the nine hells, but not technically devils, kytons are creatures of both law and evil, and these concepts are a major part of who and what they are. A kyton has the lawful, evil, and kyton subtypes. When not in the nine hells, they also have the extraplanar subtype.
Finally, we have the ability influence chains, which, if you’ll recall, is designed to be a watered-down, low-level version of the existing ability “dancing chains.” Let’s take a look at the original:
Dancing Chains (Su): A kyton can control up to four chains within 20 feet as a standard action, making the chains dance or move as it wishes. In addition, the kyton can increase these chains’ length by up to 15 feet, and cause them to sprout razor-edged barbs. These chains attack as effectively as the kyton itself. If the chain is in another creature’s possession, the creature can attempt a DC 15 Will save to break the kyton’s power over the chain. If the save is successful, the kyton cannot attempt to control that particular chain again for 24 hours or until the chain leaves the creature’s possession. A kyton can climb chains it controls at its normal speed without making Climb checks. The save DC is Charisma-based.
So, for the low-level version, the first thing that needs to go is definitely the ability to make four attacks, and frankly we should probably remove the ability to attack with it altogether, at this level. The climbing thing should definitely stay, and I don’t see any reason not to include the nebulous “dance or move as it wishes,” thing, either. I think we’ll hold off on being able to affect held or attended chains for now, though: that would be a good improvement for later.
Influence Chains (Su): A kyton can control any unattended chain within 20 feet as a standard action, making the chain dance or move as he wishes. The chain is too slow and ponderous to make attack rolls or combat maneuver checks, but can otherwise act as the kyton wishes, moving up to 10 feet per round, wrapping itself around stationary or unresisting objects, etc. A kyton can climb a chain it is controlling at its normal speed without making Climb checks. The kyton must spend an additional standard action each round to maintain control over the chain.
All right, I’m pretty satisfied with that. It still gives lots of room for fun and crazy shenanigans, without being too powerful. Ultimately, it’s somewhere in line with unseen servant, but specific to chains (and usable all day). Now that that’s out of the way, we can turn to the next level of abilities.
First up is natural armor. This is also something you see a lot of in a Races with Class class, and I’ve done it plenty in the past. Also, most of what you need to know is already on the table. I’ll just pull up something from another RWC and tweak the numbers:
Natural Armor: As he grows in experience, a kyton’s skin toughens. Often this is caused by a build-up of scar tissue from self-inflicted wounds, as kytons are well known for their love of pain, even if they prefer the pain of others. A kyton’s natural armor bonus increases as indicated in Table: the Kyton.
Strictly speaking I suppose the flavor explanation of the natural armor isn’t necessary, but I’ve always liked it, and feel it brings a little extra life to an otherwise dull ability. Next up is the unnerving gaze. For the most part this will be unchanged. See if you can spot the difference, and extra points if you can explain why it’s different.
Unnerving Gaze (Su): Range 30 ft., Will DC 15 negates. A kyton can make its face resemble one of an opponent’s departed loved ones or bitter enemies. Those who fail their saves become shaken for 1d3 rounds. This is a mind-affecting fear effect. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Unnerving Gaze (Su): As a standard action, a kyton can make his face resemble one of an opponent’s departed loved ones or bitter enemies. The target must be within 30 feet of the kyton, and may make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the kyton’s hit dice + the kyton’s Charisma modifier) to resist the effect. If the target fails its save, it becomes shaken for 1d3 rounds. This is a mind-affecting fear effect.
So, I actually wound up moving things around a bit more than I thought I would, in order to make it flow better and be easier to understand than the kyton’s original entry, which is no doubt fine for a monster stat-block, but leaves a little to be desired, in my opinion, for a class feature. The main change was to spell out the DC, instead of providing one that assumes 8 hit dice and a specific Charisma score. Finally, the ability score bonuses are pretty straightforward, and can also be pulled from a previous RWC.
Ability Score Bonuses: Beginning at 2nd level, kytons gain a number of racial bonuses to their ability scores, as marked on Table: the Kyton. By 10th level, a kyton will have total racial bonuses equal to +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and +2 Charisma.
At the next level, we get three more things: cold resistance, damage reduction, and the chain warrior ability. We’ll deal with the easy two first:
Cold Resistance (Ex): Beginning at 3rd level, a kyton becomes heavily resistant to cold. He gains cold resistance 10. At 7th level, this cold resistance increases, and the kyton becomes completely immune to cold damage.
Damage Reduction (Ex): Beginning at 3rd level, a kyton’s skin becomes supernaturally tough and is able to turn aside most attacks. The kyton gains DR 5/magic. At 7th level, this damage reduction improves, granting the kyton DR 5/good or silver weapons.
Pretty straightforward, huh? You’ll notice I added the upgrades at 7th level here, because they’re really part of the same class feature. Now comes the difficult part. If you’ll recall, the chain warrior ability is designed to be a way for the kyton to gain those extra attacks. If you’re like me, your spider sense is telling you that this is going to be a long, ugly class feature.
Chain Warrior (Ex): Kytons are the undisputed masters of chain fighting, and are able to make great use of the chains with which they adorn themselves in combat. As a full-round action, the kyton can make two attacks with its chains at its full base attack bonus. It can use only the chains provided by its wrapped in chains class feature for this ability.
On the other hand, maybe not. Sometimes these things surprise you. The key here, I think, is that we made it a full-round action, which is sort of like saying “when making a full attack,” but neatly curtails most (perhaps all) of the crazy things people would want to do with it. It’s pretty straightforward: for the price of a full-attack, you instead get these two attacks at full base attack. There’s not a lot of room for confusion, and so there’s not a lot of explanation necessary. I love subtle, elegant solutions like that. Speaking of simple, next up is the regeneration. You want to handle this one? No? All right, I’ll do it. Here we go:
Regeneration (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, a kyton is able to regenerate damage dealt to it. The kyton gains regeneration 1. This regeneration can be suppressed by a good or silver weapon, or a spell with the good descriptor. At 8th level, this regeneration improves to regeneration 2. For more information on regeneration, see the Pathfinder Bestiary.
Because regeneration is something a lot of players don’t deal with that often, I made sure to direct them to the Bestiary, which is where they keep that kind of information.
That’s all for today. Next week is a vacation week for NNW, but in two weeks we’ll be back to finish up the first half of the kyton class.